Everything about Jimmy Lyons totally explained
Jimmy Lyons (
December 1,
1931 –
May 19,
1986) was an
alto saxophone player. He is best known for his long tenure in the
Cecil Taylor Unit.
He was born in
Jersey City,
New Jersey and brought up firstly there for his first 9 years, before his mother moved the family to
Harlem and then the
Bronx. He obtained his first saxophone in the mid-1940s and had lessons from
Buster Bailey.
After High School Lyons was drafted into the
United States Army and spent 21 months on infantry duty in
Korea, before spending around a year playing in army bands. On discharge, he attended New York University. By the end of the 1950s he was supporting his interest in music with day jobs in the Postal Service.
In 1961 he followed
Archie Shepp into the saxophone role in the Cecil Taylor Unit. His post-Parker sound and strong melodic sense became a defining part of the sound of that group, from the classic 1962 Cafe Montmartre sessions onwards.
During the 1970s Lyons also ran his own group with
bassoonist
Karen Borca and drummer
Paul Murphy, taking performance opportunities at the loft jazz movement around
Studio Rivbea. His group and the Unit continued a parallel development through the 1970s and 1980s, often involving the same musicians, such as trumpeter
Raphe Malik and bassist
William Parker.
Lyons died from
lung cancer in 1986. The recording legacy of his own group was relatively sparse, though that situation has been rectified by a 5 CD boxed set of archive recordings from 1972 to 1985, released on
Ayler Records.
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